Karel Rožec

* 1943

  • "I've had enough of being harassed by that State Security officer. It got to the point where he threatened me. He said he was going to turn me into an American spy, at which point I thought the whole situation was getting dangerous. And so I mentioned this lapse to a colleague at the Memorial. She said something had to be done about it. Her husband worked at the District Committee of the Communist Party of the Czechoslovak Republic, and I imagine she proved that the whole committee had met about the matter, and I was invited to the committee. There was the district secretary for propaganda and also the head of the Litoměřice State Security. The worker who had called it together told me what was going to happen, not to be afraid of anything and to tell them what was going on. I was trembling all over, because I had never stood before such high comrades in my life."

  • "You can't imagine what a problem it was in the former Terezín ghetto during the procession! At that time there were barracks for Soviet soldiers. And among the visitors were survivors, because many of them had emigrated to America, so they took out their cameras and said they would take pictures. Immediately the so-called VKR, or military counter-intelligence, was there, and they were pulling on these people that they had to take the film out of the camera. And I had to go to the headquarters of the VRK, where they sat me down and interrogated me. They asked who the visitors were, what they wanted there, and why they were photographing the place. And the poor visitors had to wait for me outside the whole time of the interrogation."

  • "Everything had to be given to the JZD (Unified agriculture cooperative) under common ownership. I remember taking the cows out of the stable, when the riders came and took the horses away. I remember how my mother cried when they took them away. So there were empty stables at home and it was all in the JZD. Then both parents worked there."

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    Ústí nad Labem, 24.03.2024

    (audio)
    duration: 02:05:48
    media recorded in project Příběhy regionu - Ústecký kraj
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In the Terezín Memorial, we were watched daily by A State Security officer

Karel Rožec, 1963, photo from graduation photo board
Karel Rožec, 1963, photo from graduation photo board
photo: archive of a witness

Karel Rožec was born on 10 December 1943 in Přestavlky near Roudnice nad Labem as the eldest of three boys into the family of Růžena and Václav Rožec. After the war, the family was given a small, twelve-hectare farm in Travčice near Terezín. Around 1951, it was clear that the parents would have to join a unified agricultural cooperative (JZD), and in January of the following year, the JZD took away all their cattle. The stables on Rožec’s farm remained empty, and the family was allowed to keep only a hectare of land for their own use. In 1958, when the witness graduated from primary school, a decree was issued that the children coming out had to go to work in agriculture. In order to avoid a career as a worker in the JZD, he began to study horticulture at the apprenticeship school in Litoměřice. He did well, and after a year he was allowed to transfer to study horticulture at the Secondary School of Horticulture in Děčín-Libverda. There, thanks to his Czech professor, he became interested in literature and foreign languages. In 1965 he enlisted in the motorized artillery regiment in Louny. After the war he worked as a master of vocational training at the Litoměřice school. In 1969 he expressed his open opposition to the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact troops. He soon had to leave the apprenticeship. For a long time he was unable to find a decent job and supported himself on a part-time basis. In 1983, thanks to his knowledge of foreign languages, he joined the Memorial of National Suffering in Terezín as a guide. Hundreds of people from abroad were already heading to Terezín under deep socialism, so the State Security (StB) reserved a special worker for the Memorial. One SS officer harassed the staff and visitors and it was he who eventually forced Karel Rožec to leave the Memorial. He returned to it after the Velvet Revolution and continued to work there part-time after his retirement. The witness never got married, has no children and his great passions include books and travelling. In 2024 he was living in Litoměřice.